Community Transit's Destinations Print Ads to Promote Awareness, Positive Perception & Ridership

Target Audience: The focus of this campaign was to reach new riders within Snohomish County, with a secondary focus on lapsed riders. We have an opportunity to raise awareness of who we are, where we serve, and the destinations we can help people reach. We aimed our focus in print media on two audiences: - Older Adults: This is one of our key audiences, as older adults aged 65+ are eligible for Community Transit's reduced fare program for seniors. - Budget-conscious people: we wanted to seize the opportunity to get in front of those who are budget-conscious, who may be considering their travel options with the rising gas prices in mind.

Strategy Objective:The print media for the Destinations campaign focused on highlighting Community Transit's local routes. We customized ads by placement, highlighting the scene for the community in which the publication was in. We also featured bus routes that traveled through those communities, letting our audience know where they can go. During the summer, we highlighted popular events in Snohomish County and promoted the bus routes that our audience could take to get to those events. These ads were part of the larger comprehensive campaign, aiding in brand awareness. The end result was a series of impactful print ads, full of personality that would help evoke a sense of community connection and show that our service is great for traveling throughout Snohomish County.

Situation Challenge: Post COVID-19, our ridership data showed that commute patterns had shifted drastically. Commuter routes had only reached 50% of their pre-COVID ridership. The return of frequent riders was slow, with lower demand for peak-time commuter service. - In 2021, only 21% of our past riders were using transit at least four or more days a week. - Almost all riders who previously used Community Transit four or more days a week, but stopped completely post-COVID, said they would not return to daily use anytime soon. Pre-COVID, Community Transit's commuter bus routes to Seattle were some of the most popular and well-known services offered. Seeing the new reality that this ridership level was slow to bounce back, we looked at increasing awareness of our local bus routes within Snohomish County.

Results Impact: The impactful print media aids in the top-of-funnel awareness channels, helping lift the other tactics in the comprehensive campaign. During the Destinations campaign , we saw that: - Ridership has grown YoY, with most of the growth in the non-commuter routes - Overall boardings increased by 23% from 2022 to 2023 - Boardings from non-commuter routes increased by 10% from 2022 to 2023, equaling to 85% of our pre-COVID boardings in 2019

Why Submit: The Destinations campaign has achieved its goals and objectives: it evoked a sense of community connection with Community Transit with its eye-catching art depicting the communities we serve and engaged our audience to visit our website to learn about our services. This campaign resulted in our month-over-month use of "Plan My Trip" increasing, and we see it in the ridership numbers, with boardings on our non-commuter routes increasing by 10% from 2022 to 2023, reaching 85% of our pre-COVID boardings from 2019. The print media series has helped us get in front of an older audience that might not be engaging with our digital ad placements, and this was an important audience for us to reach.